Another Night
by Vampbarbie
Summary: The Doctor is made to remember. Please r&r. Characters: Ten. Martha. Rose sort of
1. Chapter 1

**Another Night**

A short little thing that works as a one-shot but could be continued if you lovely people demand it. I'm not sure yet. So please read and review.

Characters: Ten, Martha.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

The Doctor throws open the door to a blast of icy Cardiff wind and breathes it in deeply.

"So this charges the TARDIS up right? Like a mobile phone?"

"Something like that," he says dryly as he looks down the litter that has just blown itself into his ship and is wrapping itself around his ankles. He shuts the door and stoops to pick up the sheet of newspaper, crisp packet, and what looks at first glance like an A4 white leaflet. So he isn't quite sure why he turns it over and starts reading it.

"To my dearest Doctor."

The first line causes him to choke.

"What is it?" Martha asks concerned.

The Doctor ignores her, his eyes racing across the page.

"I have no idea why I'm writing this letter and throwing to the wind in Cardiff. But I miss you. Maybe you'll read it, maybe you won't. If it gets sucked into the time vortex maybe you'll read it in hundreds of years time when I'm dead and gone.

I'm working at Torchwood…well this realities version anyway. Mickey and Pete work here too. I keep looking you know? For just the smallest hint of something that might be you. I go running to the furthest reaches of Scotland only to find that the alien that may have been you was merely a crazy farmer ranting at the sky. No crazier than writing letters that no one is ever going to read I guess."

The Doctor closes his eyes, the letter crumpled against his chest. His chest hurts and it feels like he can't breathe.

"Doctor? Doctor?" Martha says in his ear.

"I'm fine," he says automatically opening his eyes.

Martha stares at him. There is a deadness in his normally sparkling eyes that scares her. "Tell me what's wrong."

"No!" he snaps sharply, stepping away from her. "No," he says softer, burying his nose back in the letter.

"Mum had her baby, a boy. We called him Jack. After the Captain of course. He's growing up to be just as much of a handful. And I'm happy. Most of the time. I'm trying to have that fantastic life you asked me to such a long time ago. But there are times when I just want to curl up into a little ball and stay there. It's always at night, in bed, that I let myself think about you. It's too hard otherwise. I heard this Jason Donovan song the other day (yes they have him in this dimension – He's more successful than Kylie!) and its me. Its what I feel Doctor.

'Another night and still you're gone, another dream that you're coming home, another day I could just survive but I can't take another night.'

I wonder if you think about me. Do you ever miss me? I know what you meant to say on the beach Doctor and I would give anything for you to say it. But you can't and I understand. Leaving me was never about us. It was about the bigger things. But standing on the rift in Cardiff clutching a letter that you may never read, the bigger things don't seem to matter all that much. I miss the little things. The way you'd grin at me. The way my hand just fit inside yours. I accosted a man in the street because he looked like the old you.

But I'm not going to think about you anymore Doctor. I can't. Its too hard and I hate it. I hate that my stomach turns inside out when I even imagine the noise of the TARDIS. Whenever someone mentions a doctor I feel my heart skip. I can't do it anymore I'm sorry. I'm fed up of going crazy. It's been two years. I'm fed up of feeling like this. I can't have a fantastic life with your shadow over it.

So its time to say goodbye Doctor. I love you but I have to let go. If you ever read this, have a fantastic life Doctor. All of them. Yours always Rose."

"Doctor?" Martha grabs at his arm as he sinks to the floor, tears streaming down his face. "What is it?"

He turns his wide hazel eyes to her concerned face and she is shocked to see such terrible devastation there.

"What is it?" she asks again. "Doctor please you're scaring me."

"Rose," he says and starts to laugh through his tears. "Rose. Rose Tyler. Rose." Because she may be forgetting him but he wasn't forgetting her.

Martha steps back. Rose. The last girl. The one he never mentions. The one whose memory has been all but erased from the parts of the TARDIS he'll let her see.

The Doctor folds the letter carefully and slips it inside his jacket pocket. Maybe, just maybe, one day, he would make Rose change her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Since i got such demand to continue this I have. Please read and review.

I think I've painted a rather sympathetic Martha which since I don't really like her isn't like me!

I still own nothing.

* * *

Chapter 2

Mickey Smith wraps his arm around her shoulders as they sit curled up on the sofa in the living room in front of the television. She doesn't move in the darkness, lit only by the blue flicker of the TV. He hears a small suppressed sniffle and pretends he hasn't. She never lets him see that, despite everything. He hasn't seen her cry in two years. She only cries in the darkness. Where she feels safe. It gives him something that she feels safe with him.

On the TV screen Billy Crystal is telling Meg Ryan, "I came here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

She snuffles some more, and out of the corner of his eye he sees her wipe furiously at her eyes smudging mascara onto her cheeks. Maybe this wasn't the best film to watch with her. Her head droops towards his shoulder, her cheek nuzzling against it, and one hand snakes across Mickey's lap into his. He lets her fingers curl inside his for a moment then she pulls away, balls her hand into a fist and then relaxes it slowly. She never holds his hand. That was something for someone else. If they go out she'll link her arm through his but never hold his hand. Sometimes in her sleep she reaches for his hand, but she isn't dreaming of him. He knows she did something, made a decision, made a choice, because she started staying at his flat. She never used to do that. She would leave at three a.m. and retreat to her own bed and cry. Maybe she'll be his for once, maybe he's stolen her back, but he knows that isn't true.

Mickey Smith might be second best but compared to Him it's all he can be. And to be with her he'll suffer it. He listens to her breathing, coming in tiny ragged sobs against his shoulder. He leans over and kisses Rose on the top of her head and squeezes her a little bit tighter and wishes he could make it alright. Make her decision that bit easier. Make her forget.

* * *

The TARDIS has remained in the centre of Cardiff for three weeks so far, and she watched the Doctor mope about the first week. He pretended he was fine to her face. But she would catch him rereading that letter, his eyes full of pain; watch him tuck it inside his jacket again, next to his hearts. He hides a lot of things from her she realises. Little stupid things. Like when he makes a cup of tea. He has to have it from this chipped mug, which rather randomly states 'Doctor's Do It Best', and he'll ladle in sugar; then take a sip before wincing at the mug like something about it doesn't taste quite right. In one of his more jovial moments he once declared that Jackie made the best cup of tea "in the entire universe" but who Jackie is or was he doesn't make any move to explain. He'll disappear for hours and claim he was 'tinkering' when he reappears. And only last week when they were in the wardrobe he snatched a pair of pink-framed sunglasses out of her hands without explanation.

Now he is outside throwing pieces of paper to the icy wind. She leans in the doorways and watches him. He has got three littering fines and a ticking off for 'cheeking a policeman'. Martha didn't think it was even possible to 'cheek' a policeman anymore.

He didn't show her the letter he carefully wrote and hand copied countless times, and she didn't ask to see it. Then he gathered the sheaf of papers up, gabbled something about trajectories and wind speed, bounded out of the door like an excitable puppy and started lobbing bits of paper around. He's balled them up, sent them fluttering folded and unfolded, even made a paper plane of one, and let them all sail away. Maybe to her, maybe not, Martha thinks slightly bitterly. Because if he finds her he'll forget all about me. She thinks about leaving the TARDIS right now, just walking away and not looking back, because right now he wouldn't notice her if she screamed in his face. But she can't make herself take that step. Because staying here for just one more day, one more trip, one more handhold is better than not having it at all.

* * *

The wind whips her hair across her face and she stares down from the cliffs over Bad Wolf Bay at the grey sea and flat sandy beach where two minute figures stand talking. Their last conversation. She can hear it playing in the back of her mind. Someone comes up behind her and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

"Nice view?" he asks.

"Not really," she replies, keeping her gaze out to sea because if she turns round it won't be him.

She can hear his smile in his voice. "Maybe the sun will come up Rose."

She turns and her breath catches as the Doctor grins at her. Oddly he is wearing a blue suit that she doesn't recognise but his familiar brown coat is flapping around him. He shoves a paper aeroplane into her hands.

"Now wake up Rose," he says still smiling.

"No! I don't want to!"

"You have to wake up. Rose. Rose!"

He fades away as she opens her eyes.

"Rose? You awake?" Mickey leans over her.

She pushes her head up off her desk and blinks. "Yeah."

"Really?" he smiles at her and twirls lazily on his swivel office chair. "Don't want the boss to catch you."

She raises an eyebrow. "The boss is married to my mother he'd be fine about it. He knows I'm bored!" she sighs theatrically. "We need a field mission not more bloody paperwork!" she sweeps a pile of papers across her desk grumpily. "Give me a Gelph any day…Hang on, have you been throwing things at me while I slept?" she asks picking up the paper plane. She eyes it curiously, its bent nose and crumpled wings.

"No why would I?"

She starts to crumple it into a ball but something makes her stop and unfold it.

"To my darling Rose."

"Is this some kind of joke?" she demands angrily of a very shocked Mickey.

"What?" he stares at her in confusion and she realises from his eyes that he knows nothing about this. Mickey couldn't fake his handwriting. There's no way. She would know, she knows she would.

"What's wrong?" he asks worriedly.

She ignores him and reads the letter.

"To my dearest Rose. I got your letter I thought I should tell you. You're moving on with life, good for you. I wish I could say the same for me. I miss you. Sometimes more than I can stand. You want to forget me. I want to forget you too but I can't. I tried doing what you're doing. It lasted two weeks, then I found myself sitting in your room.

I threw this letter (and several others) into the rift and I hope you're reading one. Maybe you're not, maybe a hobo is using this as a hat."

Rose can't help but giggle at that. Mickey stares at her frowning.

"Its okay Rose, I understand why you need to do what you're doing and I forgive you. I don't want you to waste your life for me. I'm sorry for everything you could possibly blame me for Rose, because I've already blamed myself. There are days when I wake up and expect to see you eating toast in the kitchen…I like toast, toast soldiers with strawberry jam, anyway I digress. You're never there. I have so many questions Rose. I have so many things to tell you. I always wonder what you would do in the situations I end up in. I miss you so much.

So many adventures together, so many places. I refuse to pretend they didn't happen. So you keep telling yourself that you've forgotten me, because I'm going to prove you wrong.

I love you – D."

Rose stares at the paper until her eyes blur. It can't be real. But who could fake his familiar handwriting, written in posh fountain pen because he couldn't abide biros. Always said people chewed off the ends and then he got ink everywhere, and pointedly looking at her. The words swim in front of her eyes as they fill with tears.

"Rose?" Mickey's voice is full of concern.

She suddenly bursts into hacking sobs, and presses her hand tight to her mouth.

"Rose?" Mickey puts his arms around her. "What is it?"

She leans against him, shaking as she cries. Mickey gently takes the letter with one hand and reads it over her shoulder. He reads every word slowly while Rose's tears make a wet patch on his shirt.

"Is this real?" He hates himself for asking her and hates the writer of the letter more because he knows the answer.

Rose nods, choking and wiping her nose on the back of her hand. She hasn't cried openly in front of anyone since Bad Wolf Bay. And he wishes she wasn't. Mickey tightens his arms around her again and kisses the top of her head. He wants to make it better, she wants to let him. But both of them know he can't, not this.

"I'm taking you home."

* * *

They leave Cardiff one morning and the Doctor just leaves the TARDIS floating in the time vortex. Martha can see him fading just a little. The sparkle in his eyes is a little dimmer. He seems quieter somehow, like he's realised he's made a terrible mistake. That he's made a promise to someone that he can't possibly keep. He drifts around the TARDIS poking buttons and tinkering and doing nothing at all. He isn't interested in saving the world, any world, right now. And he'll look at her when he thinks she doesn't see him do it, like he's sorry. Like he betrayed her. Like he feels guilty that she is still there. Like he wants her to be someone else.

The TARDIS murmurs softly and the Doctor mumbles something unintelligible to it and rubs one of the curved supports lovingly. Martha can't stand it.

"Find her," she suddenly says.

The Doctor looks up at her with all his little boy lost charm that has followed him since he found that letter. "What?"

Martha takes a deep breath. Step off the cliff Martha, go on. "Go find her. Find Rose. Do it now." She swallows. Just by saying those words she has ended this. She knows she has, but she'd rather see him happy than this. Anything but seeing him so sad.

The Doctor stares at her, his mouth slightly open. Then he crosses the space between them in a few long strides. He picks her up in a hug. "Thank you," he murmurs against her ear.

"You're welcome," Martha says softly feeling sick as the Doctor bounds to the console and starts programming something.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

Last chapter and its way too cute for me. So sweet and fluffy that it'll make your teeth hurt! Plus Jackie gets to be violent. Enjoy and R&R.

* * *

"He got it mum! He did! And he wrote back!"

Jackie Tyler looks from the crumpled letter to her daughter's tear-stained face. "This doesn't mean he's coming back Rose. Its just a letter."

They can't say his name. He is just 'him' or 'he', this omnipresent force that lingers in every corner of their lives, like a shadow looking over their shoulders.

"He can mum. He promised!"

"No he didn't love. He said he's going to prove you wrong. That isn't the same thing."

Rose glares at her mother and snatches the letter back. She jabs her finger towards Jackie's face fiercely. "He'll prove you wrong!"

Jackie watches Rose stomp up the stairs. Mickey smiles sadly and follows her. Jackie hopes Rose is wrong. The Doctor brings nothing but trouble and heartbreak, and she wants Rose to be happy. This last month Rose had been happy and now he has to come back and destroy it.

* * *

Mickey sits down on the bed beside Rose and hugs her. All of a sudden Rose turns and kisses him deeply. Mickey pushes her away.

"No Rose. You're not the right frame of mind for that."

Rose kisses him again. "I am. I love you, you know that right?"

Mickey smiles weakly. "Yeah I know. I love you too."

Rose reaches for his shirt buttons and he grabs her hand. "No. I'll stay but not for that Rose. Not tonight."

Rose just nods silently, her eyes still puffy and red.

Mickey strokes her hair silently as he hugs his girlfriend to him. He hates pretending that she's thinking about him but he will. Because maybe one day it'll be true. She wants to tell herself she loves me, he thinks. Construct her life the way it should be, family, job, boyfriend…but it's a lie and they all know it. Only Rose thinks she believes it. Because the truth is harder to cope with and she wanted to erase that. Move on. Forget. Until He came back with that letter. Why now? Why now of all times? But that's what He does isn't it? Steams in at the worst possible moment and usually saves the day. Well today Mickey thinks that he isn't coming. He told Rose himself that it would tear both worlds apart. And he won't do that. Not even for Rose Tyler.

Rose's eyes snap open and for half a second she thinks she has imagined that sound. Mickey's breathing is loud beside her ear but there is no mistaking it. She sits bolt upright in bed as the TARDIS materialises at the end of her bed. She can feel herself shaking. She screams. Mickey sits bolt upright with a yell. The TARDIS door opens and the Doctor nearly jumps out of his skin to be met by this.

Mickey. Mickey the idiot. The Doctor swallows thickly and slams the door.

Rose stares in horror as the TARDIS fades away, her hair blowing all over her face. Through the door burst Pete brandishing a gold club and Jackie with a baseball bat.

"What's going on?" Pete demands looking round the room.

"I thought you were being murdered!" Jackie says lowering the bat.

Rose kneels on the bed. "Mum he was here. The TARDIS was right where you're standing!"

"It was just a dream love."

* * *

The Doctor presses his knuckles against his eyes and slides to the floor, his back against the door. He can't breathe. Rose wasn't lying when she said she was moving on. Oh god, why did it have to be Mickey?

"Doctor?" Martha stands by the console. "What happened?"

"We're leaving." The Doctor's voice wobbles, on the verge of losing it. He aims the sonic screwdriver at the console and the time engine starts whirring. He bites his lip and tries to breathe. But his chest feels too heavy and he can't draw a breath. His eyes are stinging and his stomach feels stuck in his throat.

Martha smiles at him strangely. "Sorry Doctor that's not going to happen." She slams her palm down on a button. "I think that's the reversing button isn't it?"

The Doctor's eyes go impossibly wide and he stares at her speechlessly.

The TARDIS whirs around them and in the middle of the room a shape gradually appears. A woman. Holding a baseball bat.

"Jackie!"

"I'm going to kill you!"

"Jackie! I can explain!"

"You'd better!" The bat slams into the floor where the Doctor has just been as he rolls out of the way and leaps to his feet.

The Doctor runs behind Martha. "Please put the bat down!"

She swings it wildly at him. Martha darts out of the way and the bat hits the edge of the console.

"My ship!" he cries pausing to stare at the console.

"Ship this!" Jackie shouts swinging at him again. The bat cracks loudly against a pillar.

The Doctor takes one look at her face and legs it.

Jackie pursues the Doctor round the console like some 'Carry On' film. "I'm going to give you such a slapping you bastard!"

The door opens and the Doctor throws himself behind the first person that steps inside, and holds them in front of him like a shield. It happens to be Rose.

"She's crazy!" he cries holding out his hands in defence.

"Mum put the baseball bat down," Rose says calmly. Jackie lowers the bat sulkily. Rose turns, grabs the Doctor's lapels, pulls him into a smouldering kiss then propels him at her mother. Jackie slaps him round the face hard enough to crack teeth. The Doctor looks stunned.

"Hello," he finally stutters lamely staring between the two women.

"Can't I just hit him again?" Jackie asks.

"No," Pete and Mickey have entered the TARDIS behind Rose.

The Doctor looks at Rose silently. "Rose…"

"Is it really you?" she interrupts. "You sent that letter?"

He nods. "I got yours. Blew in on the wind. Seemed rude not to reply."

Rose's eyes well up. "Doctor…" she reaches out a hand for him tentatively.

He steps to her and picks her up in a huge hug. "Rose Rose, oh god…Rose."

Rose starts crying and buries her face against him. "Doctor. I gave up on you, I'm so sorry…"

He sets her down. "Don't Rose. Please don't. It doesn't matter."

She smiles at him and reaches for his hand, and the Doctor suddenly steps away. "I can't."

"What?"

The Doctor's eyes slide past her to Mickey, leaning in the doorway. "You're with him now."

Rose looks round at Mickey looking torn.

Mickey makes the decision very simple for her. "She's yours Doctor. I know she doesn't love me. She wants to but she can't. Not while you're alive." He steps to Rose and kisses her tenderly. "I love you but this is what you really want."

Rose gives him a grateful smile and squeezes his hand tightly.

Martha steps forward and clears her throat nervously. In all the hubbub she has been rather forgotten.

"Who is she?" Rose asks suspiciously, suddenly jealous.

The Doctor takes Martha's hand and pulls her forwards. "Rose Tyler meet Martha Jones. Martha this is Rose."

"Hi," Martha smiles, trying to hide her sadness. "So you're Rose."

"Yeah. This is my mum, Jackie, and Mickey and Pete."

"Jackie of the tea fame?" Martha looks at the Doctor.

"Yeah," he says rather sheepishly as Jackie looks at him. He still thinks she might take a sneaky swing with the bat if Rose isn't looking.

Pete steps forward to break the awkward silence between the two girls. He holds out his hand to the Doctor.

"Nice to see you again Doctor."

The Doctor shakes his hand. "I see you've been looking after my girls well."

"Your girls?" Jackie retorts at him. "Since when was I your girl?"

The Doctor gives her a soft smile. "Always were Jackie. You had me at the first slap." He steps towards her and despite the threat of a beating with the baseball bat grabs hold of her in a tight hug.

"Get off you soppy git!" Jackie pushes the Doctor away but manages to smile at him.

He smiles back and looks back at Rose who looks worried and sad and happy all in the same expression. "What is it?"

She shakes her head. "Why did you come back?"

"What?" his voice is so quiet, so hurt, that she barely hears him.

"Why now? Why such a long time? Why when I…"

He steps forward and captures her face between his hands and kisses her deeply.

Martha suddenly realises exactly why she was always second best to her. To Rose. The one he left behind, lost and now found again. She can see in that kiss exactly why they belong together. And she doesn't want to stand in the way of that. She's going to ask him to take her home. She looks away and catches Mickey's eye. In an instant she can see he feels just the same as she does.

He steps over to her and smiles. "Tin dog," he says simply.

"What?"

"You and me, we're the tin dog." He laughs lightly. "But we still wouldn't have missed it would we?"

She shakes her head. "Not a minute of it."

"Will you put my daughter down?" Jackie says. "You're like a dog on heat you are." She pokes the Doctor in the side with the end of the bat.

He releases Rose's lips but keeps his hands in her hair. "Do you see now?"

Rose nods her mouth open slightly and staring at his eyes.

"I never realised I could until that letter appeared. Rose I'm so sorry." His eyes start to glisten. "I am so sorry. Rose please forgive me."

"I do," she rests her forehead against his. "Can I come home?" she murmurs.

"Thought you'd never ask!" his voice hasn't sound so cheerful in months and he grins widely. Then spots Martha. "Martha I…"

"Don't Doctor. I get it. Just take me home and visit once in a while." She tries to smile convincingly.

The Doctor hugs her tightly. "I'm sorry Martha."

"Stop apologising!" she rebukes him jokingly. "Thank you Doctor. For everything." She looks at Rose. "He was miserable without you. I see it so clearly now. Keep him happy." She turns his face towards her with one hand. "Don't let this smile go out."

"I won't."

"So you're just taking her Doctor?" Jackie demands poking at him with the bat again.

"I…" he opens his mouth uselessly as Jackie hefts her weapon again.

"Over my dead body Time Lord."

"MUM!" Rose shouts.

"Jackie don't." Pete's voice never even rises but remains even. "He came through once didn't he? He can do it again can't you Doctor?"

The Doctor frowns, his tongue between his teeth as he thinks. "I guess I can now."

"So I can visit?" Rose's eyes brighten.

He nods. "And with that I think we shall take our leave," he says. "Before your mother really does batter me with that bat. Ooo battering with a bat."

He ushers them out of the door as he speaks. "Bye!" he waves camply. "See you all soon."

Rose hugs her mother. "I'll be back I promise."

"You better!" Jackie warns. "Or the Doctor is pancake shaped."

"Lovely to see you too Jackie."

He shuts the door firmly and turns to the two girls. "London first Martha?"

She nods.

"Then maybe Barcelona Rose?" The Doctor starts up the time engine and coos at the TARDIS adoringly.

"He does that with you to huh?" Rose whispers.

"Yeah all the damn time! Enough to give a girl a complex."

Rose and Martha look at each other and start laughing loudly. The Doctor looks up. "What?"

The two girls just grin at him.

"What?" he implores. "Why are you laughing?"


End file.
